It was a good time to take the medium loop out around Draper Lake. At the farthest corner from where I live, I was arrested by the sound of hundreds of migratory birds. They were clustered in the tree tops just a short way off the road. I’m not enough of a bird watcher to recognize the species, but the thick chorus of twittering at high volume was enthralling. After dismounting, I stood and listened for several minutes.

Yesterday’s ride was the first time in over a year when I felt really strong and had the stamina to push myself the whole way. There’s a reason for trying so hard: It’s necessary equipment for the next mission. It doesn’t require concrete factual knowledge of the mission to know my heart demands this of me. It’s rather like what the military refers to as “a warning order” — get ready for something. That sort of command notice offered only those specifics we needed to know to be ready. That’s what I have from God. I know to push my fitness level up in certain ways, but I don’t need to know how it will be used later, only that it will be used.

By the same token, I’ve been given several other gifts from God, rather like the issuing of fresh equipment and supplies for the mission. Some of it I struggle to describe in words. It’s almost like an infusion of steel in my being, a strength of focus and purpose that clarifies a lot of things. Unlike a kind of random, “What do I do with this,” it’s more like, “Okay, we don’t need this any more.” Turn it back in to the supply room. There’s nothing wrong with being wide open to a lot of stuff you aren’t too sure about; that’s my general habit of mind. It’s that libertarian nature without all the theoretical vigor. But when a strong sense of calling comes flooding in, you realize that it doesn’t matter whether something is harmless of harmful; it has to fit the purpose at hand.

As a general reminder, a persistent effort to live in your heart changes everything. This is how you get your house in order and make the demons feel unwelcome, giving them no room to camp out on your sofa, much less have their own room. Don’t feed them. Invest the resources in consciously staying focused on the eternal moral guidance of your heart. “And the things of earth/ will grow strangely dim/ in the light of His glory and grace” says the old song (“Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”).

If you don’t sense that kind of purpose, make it a major prayer request. The answer is not likely to be written in the sky for you, but you’ll see it everywhere. In the Kingdom of Heaven, we don’t find much value in being well-rounded like some Renaissance Man or Woman. What really matters is first an overwhelming sense of availability, and when the time comes, a powerful drive to act on something that brings Him glory. Start where you are and listen for that call from Creation itself. That’s where the first clues will be found. If you walk in the light you have, He will move you along the path for His glory.

The key is obedience. Don’t keep referring to what your learned in your head, but accept answers from that source impossible to define inside your own soul. If you can accept the notion that there is a difference between your head and your heart, that awareness alone is the starting point. Part of the reorientation is also ditching the idea that what comes early will remain for life. What comes first is the territory you have to cross in order to get to the right place. And somewhere in the background is the awareness that you never really arrive. Once you get there, you still have to start building and making a home for the Lord. It’s never done, and the Bible warns us that we will be called Home in the middle of faithfully plugging away at the job.